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Child abuse frame-up backfires on stalker

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A stalker's plan to land a love rival in jail has backfired, resulting in a prison term for the stalker, although his rival was initially arrested for child porn offences.

A Basildon court heard that Ilkka Karttunen, 48, successfully broke into the Essex home of the object of his affection and downloaded child porn before taking the hard drive and sending it into the police with a note identifying the owner. The ruse was designed to get the husband of a co-worker Karttunen fancied arrested on child porn charges, clearing obstacles towards a possible relationship, at least by Karttunen's thinking.

The man was arrested, and subsequently prohibited from visiting his home or seeing his children The Timesreports. However, police were more thorough in their subsequent investigation than Karttunen would have liked. Suspicions over how the hard drive was sent to the police together with other factors fingered Karttunen as a suspect. Evidence from the computer suggested the Finn had broken into the family's home multiple times, taking pictures of a family calendar that showed when the husband would be at work.

A raid on Karttunen's home turned up a computer containing pictures and credit card details harvested from the family computer of the victim of the frame-up, who cannot be named for legal reasons. Forensics tests on the machine, which was hidden in Karttunen's garden shed, resulted in charges of harassment, perverting the course of justice and making indecent images of children against the Finn.

Karttunen denied all the charges but was convicted by a jury at Basildon Crown Court. The 48-year-old was jailed for four and a half years last week, given a restraining order and ordered to sign the sex offender's register after his release. ®